Discrimination Pure and Simple

The trending line on facebook had an appalling headline. “Beheading in Oklahoma.” The link took me to a local OK television station. There was the story of a man who was fired from his job. He returned to his old work place with a large knife. There he stabbed and slashed one woman multiple times, severing her head. He was assaulting a second when he was shot by an employee of the company. Oh yes, the murderer had a past history of violence and assault, including assault on a police officer.

Actually a pretty  unremarkable story. Revenge killings after being fired? We’ve seen that before. Knife attacks. Also been there. And gruesome? Well there are the drug cartels in Texas. So why was this story trending? Why was it picked up by the Washington Post and CNN?

Because the murderer was identified by co-workers as a Muslim (although his name is “Christian”) and severing a head could also be called a beheading. Not that there is in fact a difference. One is a formal ritual of punishment once common in the Christian West (remember Anne Bolin?) while the other is an act of murder or war. But with the “Muslim” identification and the “Beheading” headline Oklahoma Muslims communities had to immediately issue denunciations of the killer and how he was “un-Islamic.”

Here’s denunciation I haven’t seen: “Christian leaders condemn Christian militias campaign of brutal violence in West Africa as anti-Christian.”

And despite the fact that I haven’t seen these headlines, I’ve also never gotten dozens of emails demanding to know why Christians don’t speak up against murder by Christians. No one stands up in one of my classes on World Religions and says, “Why don’t Christians speak up about Christian dictators like Robert Mugabe and their brutal Christian rule?” No one asks me on the street, “Why don’t Christians speak out against the killing of innocent black men by Christian cops?”

Is it because Christians are speaking up? Well frankly no. Since the rise of ISIS I have received literally dozens of public statements by Muslim groups around the world condemning the violence. Every murder or even attack by a Muslim in the US receives immediate condemnation by local mosques and state and national Islamic organizations. But I’ve received nothing over the last 10 years from local Christians about either Christian murders or the deadly and debilitating campaigns of killing and rape carried out by Christian groups in West Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and so on. Nor have I seen the media asking whether Christianity is a violent religion, and whether “political Christianity” is an enemy of democracy.

In fact it is the Christian community ignores Christian violence, remaining publicly silent unless perhaps a pastor or family member says in an interview, “he was such a nice young man.” Even though the vast majority of murders in Texas are committed by Christians I’ve yet to see a statement by any church council condemning murder as against Christian principles and the murderers as un-Christian. Christians are far more vocal in opposing the death penalty than they are in condemning murderer.

What we have in the story from Oklahoma, and dozens like it, is discrimination pure and simple. The story is trending because it ties a whole religion and entire community to the viciousness of a few of its members. It is is trending (Now re-reported in “The Blaze” and then on facebook by Glenn Beck) because it creates and breeds bigotry against Muslims. And the participants in this, wittingly and unwittingly,are all of us, but in particular the news media across the spectrum from left to right.

We’ve seen this before in the U.S. The same techniques was/is used against African Americans, and was used against Americans of German descent during the wars, Americans of Japanese descent in the 40’s, and reaching backwards and forwards in history Mormons, Irish, Italians, Chinese, and on and on.

In all those cases the same press that helped create bigotry to sell papers (and now TV ad time) also played a role in putting it to an end.

It is high time for the press to do the same thing with regard to the American Muslim community. It is time to cease the discrimination, get rid of the bigoted and misleading headlines, and get rid of the hate mongering.

“In Oklahoma an aggrieved worker attacked two former colleagues with a knife and killed one of them. He had a violent past.” That is the whole story.